Monday, August 25, 2008

Intensity of human environmental impact may lessen as incomes rise

Science Daily: The richer you are, the more of the world’s resources you can afford to consume. But in many parts of the world, rising incomes are not having the proportionate effect on energy consumption, croplands and deforestation that one might expect, a new 25-year study shows.

By examining a variety of government and industry data spanning 1980 to 2006, RockefellerUniversity’s Jesse Ausubel and his colleagues say that dematerialization — the declining consumption of energy and goods in comparison to a country’s gross domestic product — is actually driving a trend toward rising environmental quality. The results are published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“For generations, people have lightened their environmental impact by multiplying their consumption less than their income,” says Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment. “We have found encouraging evidence that this trend continues, particularly in places like China and India.” While consumers increase their use of staples more slowly than their affluence grows, producers also play a role as access to better technology allows them to get more from less….

June 2009 – At the studios of Cleanskies TV, I was interviewed about the costs of climate change, and discussed adaptation efforts underway in the US and around the world.

May 2009 – I helped draft the scenarios for Rising Waters, a multistakeholder scenarios effort focused on climate change adaptation in the Hudson Valley. The final report is now completed and available here.

May 2008 – I reviewed two books on climate and energy in the New Leader magazine: James Gustave Speth's The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability, plus Robert Bryce's Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.

January 2008 – A very local paper covers a very global issue.... The Litchfield County Times in northwestern Connectictut ran an article in January 2008 about Carbon-Based.

Now available: Climate Change Adaptation in 2011

A selection of my writings from 2011, plus some of my posts, as well as links... all focusing on the risks of climate change